


clothes make the man

by orangesparks



Category: Mad Men
Genre: F/M, Gen, set post-season 2, you're goin to hell sinner
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-18
Updated: 2016-02-18
Packaged: 2018-05-21 11:19:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 580
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6049633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orangesparks/pseuds/orangesparks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He prays for her because no one else does.</p>
            </blockquote>





	clothes make the man

**Author's Note:**

> written and posted on the LJ like a million years ago (actually 2009 cough), i guess i'm trying to consolidate some stuff
> 
> so here we are, enjoy

During after hours, down to his undershirt and slacks, _comfortable_ , he thinks removing the sacred cloth each day (and putting it on) is a lot like taking off (and putting on) a costume, a protective shroud, exposing (burying) the ordinary man beneath, because man is weak and man sins easily (and man is foolish-)  
  
Guitar strings are humming warmly beneath his fingertips. Needs tuning, perhaps, but for now he's content enough with the thrill of relaxing, playing, without interruption.   
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
Strangers look surprised, sometimes, when he's out of matches and politely asks for a light. It's the collar that does it, probably - the faint shock of witnessing a man of God indulging in vice. It's also probably the collar that accounts for their generosity, although, of course, this is an unkind thought, and he's sure they would be just as hospitable to him were they _not_ wanting to make a good impression on a representative of the church.   
  
(She wears kid gloves to mass; white and pristine, easily soiled by ash and tar.)  
  
One afternoon while waiting at the barber's and flipping through _LIFE_ , there's an ad for Lucky Strike that catches his eye, bright and folksy with Rockwellian illustrations, and it's a little silly to wonder if she had any part in one particular campaign out of how many thousands that must be run throughout the city, but it makes him think of her just the same, and he's smiling when it's his turn to take the chair.   
  
She doesn't smoke.  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
  
People pray for children both born and unborn, the elderly. People pray for the dead, the sick, the dying. People pray for those who give them cause to believe they need it.   
  
He prays for her because no one else does.   
  
(Temptation is created, stirred, by dice well-oiled from the palms of sinful men and the cold gleam of alcohol in highball glasses and the indecently exposed flesh of film starlets, not young girls who live alone and attend mass with their families and speak so quietly and can't meet a man's gaze head-on.)  
  
 _Something_ has been drawing him to her; he knows this much. Something bigger than both of them, beyond his control. When her sister makes that strained, bitter-teared confession, he becomes more sure of this than of anything else.  
  
It is his job to bring others closer to God. It is her job to sell things. Surely it can be mutually beneficial.   
  
(One of them is better at their job than the other is.)  
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
He tells her that he wasn't born a priest. Didn't harbor childhood longings to become one, either, although there are plenty who will claim this was exactly how it went down in _their_ particular situations.  
  
He supposes she wasn't exactly born a copywriter, though with a single look at her carefully stern expression, hands neatly steepled on her desk, the professional ease with which she carries herself through that office, the quiet doe-eyed girl replaced by someone radiating such captivating inner confidence (he wonders if he'll ever look, feel, as at ease walking through a cathedral, skin painted muddy jewel tones by the light piercing stained glass windows)--  
  
One could be fooled.   
  
  
  
-  
  
  
  
He unhooks the collar, folds away thick black fabric. Sits with hunched shoulders on the bed for a long while before searching out his guitar, sleek honey-colored wood and the comforting weight of it, leaning it against him, settling it onto his lap.  
  
(Idle hands-)  
  
His fingers strum, catch, pluck.


End file.
